The world has seen geopolitical shift in terms of renewable energy initiatives in the past few decades, with Asia − particularly China − dominating the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable energy sources, moving away from fossil fuels.
Agus Pratama Sari, Chief Executive Officer at Landscape Indonesia, an organization focused on sustainable landscape management, said China has the most patents for clean energy and capacity for battery productions, solar modules or solar panels compared with other countries in the world.
“There is a huge gap between China and the U.S. or other countries in the world in renewable energy development,” Agus told the Indonesia Energy Transition Dialogue 2024 in Jakarta on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
China has also taken over the production capacity of solar and wind power domestically and the gap has become huge now between China and Europe and the U.S. China is the country with the biggest capacity of solar power and wind power.
“So what we build in a year, they could build in a week,” Agus said.
In addition to the renewable power plant, China has the most sales of electric vehicles in the world. Chinese electric vehicle company BYD’s car sales has exceeded those of U.S. electric carmaker Tesla.
“So, it shows that there is a shift and it has shifted dramatically,” Agus cited.
Europe and U.S. responses
Agus said people may wonder how could have China become that powerful in renewable energy and electric vehicle development.
He, however, believed that Europe and the U.S. will take action against China’s domination because historically Europe and the U.S. are the leaders in renewable energy and electric car technology that would make them just stand still.
He cited that when Indonesia decided to ban export of nickel ores, the European Union challenged the decision at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and won the lawsuit. At the same time the U.S. accused Indonesia of irregularities in the nickel industry.
“The U.S. accusation is not totally wrong. We do have problem in our nickel industry,“ he said.
He said further that countries all over the world have started to pay more attention on Indonesia because Indonesia has the biggest nickel reserves with 55 percent of the world’s nickel is produced in Indonesia.
“So that’s why 95 percent of nickel production in Indonesia is controlled by Chinese investors. These investors produce half completed materials in Indonesia and exported to China, which will manufacture finished products and sell them to other part of the world,” Agus concluded.
